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The dormitory was cold and dark when James pushed open the door. The four-poster beds seemed to swim before his eyes in the dim, green-tinged light, but there was no sign of movement within them.
‘Hello?’ he whispered into the dark.
The only response was the faintest rustle of fabric, so quiet he couldn’t tell which direction it came from. He looked at the beds one by one, trying to discern shapes in the half-light. How could his brother have been at Hogwarts for four years and James didn’t even know which bed in the Slytherin dormitory was his?
‘Albus?’
Another snuffling sound, this time definitely to his left. James let the door close behind him, blinking to try and adjust his eyes to the darkness, and approached the leftmost bed. The hangings were drawn, apart from a few inches’ gap near the head of the bed, and he gingerly pulled back the fabric. ‘Albus?’ he repeated, ‘Is that you?’
A muffled voice spoke from within what seemed to be a large pile of blankets. ‘Leave me alone.’
‘It’s James.’ He crouched down, awkwardly patting the blanket where he hoped Albus’s shoulder might be.
Another muffled sound from beneath the pile of quilts. He wasn’t sure, but it sounded a lot like ‘Piss off.’
‘Please, Al.’ James poked at the blanket. ‘Let me in.’
There was silence. James waited, a headache starting to pulse at his temples. When it became clear that Albus was serious about not wanting to talk, he sighed and started to pull at the corner of the fabric, gently at first. When the blanket started to slide off the bed, a hand suddenly appeared from beneath it and grabbed hold, pulling hard. James tightened his grip and yanked it back in his direction, but Albus held on, desperately trying to keep himself under the covers. The ridiculous tug of war lasted almost a minute, until finally James, bracing himself with one foot against the sturdy mahogany bed frame, managed to drag the blankets off and expose Albus, curled up in his crumpled school jumper, his face streaked with tears.
James looked down at his brother, who refused to meet his eyes. ‘Will you please just talk to me?’ he pleaded.
Albus didn’t look up, but he didn’t say no. James thought he could see his bottom lip wavering. He rolled his eyes and gathered up the blanket that had dropped to the floor, shaking it out and laying it gently back over Albus’s shoulders, then sitting down on the edge of the bed.
‘What happened? What did they say?’
He waited as his brother sniffed and pulled the blanket up around his chin, like he used to do when they were little and he would confide in James when he’d lost a favourite toy or hurt himself playing. He could almost see the thoughts whirring round Albus’s head, gradually forming themselves into words. When he eventually spoke, his voice was decidedly wobbly.
‘They were talking about Scorpius.’
‘Oh.’ James hesitated, not sure whether to say more. He settled on shuffling closer, swinging his legs up onto the bed so that he could lie down on his side and face Albus properly. He risked another question. ‘And?’
Albus’s brows furrowed, and he continued to look down at his hands, twisting the edge of the blanket between his fingers. ‘And they said he was pathetic. For being upset. And for the dreams. I think- I think someone from in here must have told them about the nightmares, about the dementors still getting to him.’
James thought back to the last time he’d seen Scorpius, a few days ago when he’d run into the pair of them leaving the library. He’d looked paler than usual, drawn, with dark circles under his eyes. He should have realised that something was wrong, should have thought to ask sooner. ‘Was it this Polly girl again?’
Albus nodded forlornly, tears welling in his eyes once more. ‘And Karl. They were in Charms with us, they started talking about- about Craig-’ A sudden sob cut through his words, as though it couldn’t be held in any longer, and James felt flooded with guilt. He reached a hand across to his brother’s shoulder, trying to hold him steady.
‘Where is he now? Scorpius, I mean,’ he asked quietly.
Albus rubbed at his face and sniffed loudly. ‘Home. His dad picked him up for the weekend. He seemed alright, but- they never- they always make these comments about him,’ he said, his voice wavering again, ‘They talk about that other world, say he shouldn’t have- that he would have been better as the Scorpion King- or that he’s weak or-’
‘Okay, okay,’ James interrupted the tearful speech and started to stroke Albus’s hair, trying to remember the last time he’d calmed his brother this way; it had seemed so often when they were little, but less and less as they had grown up - and apart.
Tears continued to streak Albus’s cheeks as he blinked furiously, avoiding James’s eyes. Now he’d started, he didn’t seem to be able to stop, and his words were punctuated with hiccoughing sobs. ‘They said he had no right to- to feel bad about Craig- that it was his- our fault-’
‘Al, you know that’s not tr-’
‘And sometimes they say stuff- say the two of us are too- that we’re weird-’
James felt a lump in the back of his throat as Albus tailed off, his shoulders shaking and tears rolling sideways from his tightly closed eyes to the damp pillow below. He reached across and pulled his brother into an awkward hug, and his head ached as he searched his mind for the right words. ‘Al, please don’t listen to them.’
‘I don’t care ,’ Albus began, raising his voice, ‘They can say what they like about me, it’s- it’s Scorpius I don’t-’
‘I know, Al, I know,’ James tried to make his voice soothing, tried to ignore the prickling feeling behind his own eyes as Albus sobbed into his chest. Do I know? he thought to himself. It wasn't long ago that he probably would have left Albus with a quick pat on the back and a ‘just ignore them!’ in response to something like this. But everything was different now.
‘Look at me.’ James said, patting Albus’s shoulder. His brother only shook his head and wiped another stray tear from his cheek. ‘Al, please. Look at me.’
Albus let out a sigh, then slowly, reluctantly, he looked up to meet James's gaze. In a split second James saw his eyes widen and his expression change from sorrow to shock, to a mix of horror and concern. He recoiled back from James, holding himself at arm's length. 'What did you do? '
James was baffled. 'What do you mean, what did I do?'
'You're bleeding,' Albus said, visibly distressed.
James reached up and touched one hand to his forehead, feeling something sticky near his hairline. Damn , he thought, I suppose that would explain the headache . He pushed himself up to a seated position with one hand and leaned back out of the bed to check his reflection in the mirror on the bedside table, pulling his wand from his pocket to use as a light.
It wasn't a pretty sight. He wasn't sure how he'd managed to get all the way to the Slytherin dormitories without anybody saying anything to him on the way about the blood dripping from his nose, or the deep purple bruise blossoming over his left eye. A small gash on his forehead seemed to have trickled blood down the right side of his face, and his lip was split on one side and starting to sting. He looked back to Albus, whose expression was still one of confusion and worry.
‘What did you do?’ Albus repeated.
‘I, uh, had a bit of a disagreement,’ James said sheepishly, trying to wipe off some of the dried blood with the cuff of his jumper and lying back down to face his brother.
Albus didn’t look in any way reassured. ‘A disagreement with who?’
‘Al, it’s really not important-’
‘Who?’
James sighed. In the past this might have been an opportunity for showing off, spinning some dramatic tale about the latest thrilling exploits of daredevil James Sirius Potter, but right now that was the last thing on his mind. It had been too long since his brother had last opened up to him about anything and he didn't want the conversation to veer away from its current focus on Albus.
But Albus was insistent. ‘James, tell me who.’
‘Fine,’ James said grumpily. ‘Jack Rosen and David Jenkins.’
‘Karl’s brother?’ Albus looked even more horror-struck.
James grimaced. ‘Yeah.’
‘They hit you?’
‘I mean, I did hit them back a bit too,’ James said, aiming for a light-hearted tone but realising it had missed the mark when Albus’s eyes started to swim with tears again.
‘Are you really hurt?’ he asked in a quiet voice.
‘No, no, I’m fine,’ James replied hurriedly. He poked at Albus’s shoulder, trying to distract him. ‘They were just being arseholes and I had to do something. Anyway, you-’
‘Arseholes about what?’
James gritted his teeth. Between the big green eyes full of suspicion and concern and the endless stream of questions, Albus was reminding him a lot of his seven-year-old self. But he wasn’t seven anymore. And he’d seen things that no kid should have to see, James realised with a jolt. Maybe it would be better to just tell him?
‘They… they were talking about you.’
There was a moment of silence while the words seemed to be sinking in. Albus bit his lip, looking almost resigned. ‘Oh. Of course.’
‘And I told them to fu-’
‘What were they saying?’ Albus asked firmly.
James thought back to the cruel laugh in the Herbology corridor that had first attracted his attention, the heated argument that had followed, the sickening thud of a fist making contact with his nose. We saw your brother run off crying with his little Death Eater boyfriend, Potter! Too bad we can’t swap them for that Bowker kid! The words rang in his ears. Albus didn’t need to know the details.
‘I think they must have seen what happened with Scorpius and Karl and Polly,’ James began, picking his words carefully. ‘They were laughing about it, talking crap about you being emotional.’
Albus nodded, appearing thoughtful rather than angry. He was silent for a few seconds. ‘But why did you fight?’
His thoughts raced as he tried to come up with an excuse, but in the end James relented. He’d come here to try and talk to his brother for once - time to actually talk. He took a deep breath. ‘Alright, they were being awful, mate. I don’t want to tell you what they said, I don’t even want to think about it. But I… I snapped, I guess.’
He hesitated, waiting to judge his brother’s reaction. Albus looked across at James with a frown, concerned but quiet, waiting for an explanation.
‘I’ve heard them saying things like that before, and… and I knew that sometimes they were mean to you, but I- I didn’t-’ James faltered, his words leading him to the realisation that had been waiting at the back of his mind for some time. ‘I didn’t know it was this bad.’
Albus’s expression was steady, with no trace of anger or annoyance. ‘It’s okay.’
‘It’s not.’ James shuffled forwards a little, wriggling in from the edge of the bed so that they lay with their eyes level. ‘Al, I- I’m sorry, alright? Ever since October I’ve been trying to figure out what to say and when I couldn’t think of anything, I kept putting it off, and I should have just… tried harder. I should have been there for you when it mattered, and I wasn’t, and it was shit of me.’
Albus opened his mouth to speak, but James cut him off. ‘Please, mate, just let me talk.’ He took another deep breath. ‘I didn’t know what to do when you got sorted into Slytherin, okay? It felt all wrong and I didn’t understand it and I thought maybe if I just ignored it, things would turn out fine. And then other kids started saying stuff, and I didn’t want it to turn into a big deal, so I ignored them too. And you had Scorpius, and you seemed okay. You never said that Polly and Karl- all of them- you never said they’d gotten worse.’
‘I didn’t want-’
‘I know.’ James met Albus’s eyes and saw that familiar trace of fear and hesitation. Only now was he beginning to realise what that meant. ‘You didn’t want to worry us, or whatever. And it’s my fault you felt like that, our fault, dad too, you know. You should never have felt like that. And then there was everything before Christmas and you disappeared, even mum and dad didn’t know how to get you back and I thought- I thought you were-’ He found himself suddenly unable to speak; his throat felt like it was closing up, and this time it was Albus who reached out, tugging the edge of the blanket forward over James and pulling him into a hug. James let himself breathe for a few seconds, holding his brother close and remembering that he was real, and there, and alive.
He felt Albus curl into him a little more, his hair tickling James’s cheek. ‘I ruined everything,’ he whispered.
‘No.’ James found his voice again. ‘It wasn’t your fault. It was awful, it was, and the thought of you being... it was awful, but it wasn’t your fault. It’s all okay now. And it made me see- I mean, it should never have taken that for me to understand- but I should have been doing more.’ He was saying everything all wrong, he thought. Why was it so difficult to just talk?
He thought for a few seconds, sorting out words in his mind, then pulled back and placed his hands on his brother’s shoulders, so he could look him straight in the eyes. ‘Look, I’m going to be better at being your big brother, okay? When I heard David and Jack earlier, when they were saying all that stuff, it just… it made me so angry. Angry at them and angry at everyone who’s ever said things like that about you, because it might only be words but look what they’ve done to you. And-’ He held up a hand to stop Albus from interrupting. ‘And I know you’ll say it’s not that bad, but I don’t care. I’m not letting them get away with it anymore and I don’t care if I have to fight every dickhead in the school three times over. I’m not… not standing up for you anymore.’
It wasn’t quite the rousing end to the speech he’d planned. Albus raised one eyebrow in confusion. ‘You’re what?’
‘I’m not not standing up for you anymore.’ James replied, more confidently.
‘So… you are standing up for me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh. Are you sure they didn’t hit you quite hard round the head?’ Albus managed a half-hearted smile.
James knew he was trying to deflect. ‘No, words just aren’t exactly my strong point. But I mean it, alright? Someone says something to you, you tell me. I don’t want anyone thinking they can talk to you that way. You’ve been through enough.’
Albus looked dangerously close to tears again, and cleared his throat before speaking. ‘It wasn’t really me though, Scorpius went through worse. Polly and Karl saying things to me is- it’s not great, but I’m only upset because of how they talk about him-’
‘Al.’ James cut him off. He knew that his brother would do anything for Scorpius, was utterly devoted to his best friend, but he had a feeling that this time that wasn’t the only thing on his mind. ‘I get it. But just because Scorpius had a terrible time doesn’t mean you can’t feel bad too.’
There was silence for several seconds. Albus had broken eye contact and was looking down at his hands again, fidgeting with the edge of the blanket and seemingly psyching himself up to say something else.
‘But it’s worse for him. I dragged him into the whole thing, he got stuck- he was in the dark world, he still gets nightmares about- about Craig-’ Albus faltered, his voice wavering.
‘Al,’ James repeated, softly. Albus looked up at him, looking so lost and so small that James's heart seemed to hurt, and all he wanted was for them to be children again, to have never experienced how dark the world could get. ‘You’re allowed to be upset, Al. What happened to Craig was horrible, and the others are horrible for talking about it that way. It’s bad for Scorpius, I know. But you’re allowed to be upset for you as well.’
Albus’s bottom lip was wobbling, and his eyes brimmed with tears. For a second he opened his mouth as if to speak, but he didn’t seem able to make a sound. James could do nothing but reach across and wrap him in the tightest hug he could manage, letting Albus bury his face in James’s chest as he started to sob. If he couldn’t protect him from sadness, at least he could be there to help him cry it out.
They stayed like that for a while, the greenish light of the dorm dimming as evening drew in, and gradually Albus’s initial, gut-wrenching sobs gave way to silent tears, then to nothing more than the occasional snuffle. James held him tight, some subconscious part of him unwilling to let go and release his brother into the mean, dangerous world on his own again.
They’d been silent for a long time when Albus shifted slightly and spoke in a small voice, the words drifting their way up to James, barely audible.
‘Is everything going to be okay, in the end?’
James felt the lump in his throat again, and took a deep breath. He pulled Albus close, pressed a kiss to the top of his baby brother’s head, and buried his face in the tangled mess of soft hair.
‘I’ll make sure it is.’
